Lady Khama

12:02AM BST 24 May 2002

Lady Khama, who has died aged 79, was the London secretary whose marriage to Seretse Khama, heir to the chieftainship of the Bamangwato tribe in the British protectorate of Bechuanaland, caused a storm in 1948.

As a result, Britain's Labour Government refused to recognise Seretse Khama, a former undergraduate at Balliol College, Oxford, and sent him into exile.

The Colonial Secretary, Patrick Gordon Walker, assured the Commons that there was no outside pressure but, in reality, the government was keen to avoid upsetting South Africa's new National Government, to the south of Botswana.

Bent on introducing apartheid, South Africa was horrified by the prospect of a mixed marriage. What was more, it had the power to withhold supplies of uranium that were vital for Britain's nuclear industry.

Dr Daniel Malan, prime minister of the new National government in South Africa, pronounced the marriage "nauseating". Even Trevor Huddlestone, later the archbishop of the Indian Ocean and a sainted opponent of apartheid, advised Sir Evelyn Baring, the High Commissioner to South Africa as well as Bechuanaland, against recognising Khama as chief of the Bamangwato; though he later regretted it.

The exasperated Prime Minister Clement Attlee complained privately: "We are invited to go contrary to the desires of the great majority of the Banangwato tribe, solely because of the attitude of the Union of South Africa and Southern Rhodesia. It's as if we had been obliged to agree to Edward VIII's abdication so as not to annoy the Irish Free State and the USA."

Lady Khama was born Ruth Williams at Blackheath, south east London, on December 9 1923, the daughter of a former captain in the Indian Army who worked in the tea trade.

She was in the family home when it was bombed during the Blitz, and left Eltham High School to join the Women's Auxiliary Air Force. She drove ambulances at the airfields of No 11 Fighter Group and served at the emergency landing station near Beachy Head.

After the return of peace, she became a confidential clerk in the claims department at Cuthbert Heath, the Lloyds underwriters. She rode, ice-skated and went ballroom dancing in her spare time, meeting her future husband, a law student living in a hostel near Marble Arch, through their mutual interest in jazz.

Although their initial meeting, when they were introduced by her sister, was not a success, the friendship matured through their enthusiasm for the Inkspots.

The sight of a black man with a white woman was then a rarity in London, and there were some unpleasant incidents in which she was branded a cheap slut by strangers.

After Seretse proposed and she accepted, the couple assumed they would return to Bechuanaland. But problems quickly developed. Her father said she could stay in the family home, then ordered her out; her boss offered a transfer to New York or the sack; she left at the end of the week.

When Seretse wrote to his uncle Tshekedi, the Regent in Bechuanaland, the London Mission Society was pressed to try to prevent the wedding. Sir Evelyn sent warning telegrams from Cape Town to the Commonwealth Office.

Three members of the Mission Society turned up at St George's, Campden Hill, and threatened to object during the ceremony. When Seretse and Ruth complained, the vacillating vicar referred them to the Bishop of London, Dr William Wand, who was conducting an ordination ceremony nearby at St Mary Abbot's in Kensington.

The young couple sat through this ceremony, but were then told by him that a marriage could not take place until the British Government agreed. In the end they were married, after some difficulty, in a register office.

The couple then went to Bechuanaland, where Seretse told a tribal rally: "Stand up those who will not accept my wife"; he counted them and shouted, "40". He then asked: "Stand up those who want me and my wife"; 6,000 stood up and applauded for 10 minutes.

But as the couple awaited the birth of their first child, Gordon Walker told Khama that he was being exiled from Bechuanaland for five years, which Winston Churchill, leader of the Opposition, described as "a very disreputable transaction". But when the Tories returned to power "not less than five years" of exile was changed to "indefinitely".

The Khamas returned to England in 1950, where Seretse continued his legal studies and Ruth kept house at Addiscombe, Croydon. Although she didn't really believe it, she used to tell him she had a telepathic feeling they would be allowed to return.

Anthony Wedgwood Benn steered a motion through a Labour party conference calling for their return. Not to be outdone, the Conservative government offered Khama a diplomatic post in Jamaica, though in reply he asked why, if he was not considered good enough to rule his own people, he should be allowed to play an administrative role in the West Indies.

One happy result of the exile was that Seretse and Ruth's father became reconciled. Then, in 1956, he heard he was being allowed back after his people had cabled the Queen. "The Bamangwato are sad. Over our land there is a great shadow blotting out the sun. Please put an end to our troubles. Send us our real Chief - the man born our Chief - Seretse".

Before the government could change its mind, Seretse hurried to London airport, leaving Ruth to sell their house and car and then follow three weeks later.

They settled down in Serowe, where Seretse consolidated his cattle farm and formed the Botswana Democratic Party; although he disclaimed a desire for the chieftainship, he gradually took over from the Regent. As such he was knighted, became first prime minister of Bechuanaland, and then president of the republic of Botswana, which remained in the Commonwealth.

Lady Khama never spoke any local languages, and remained a keen reader of Reader's Digest and National Geographic. But she was kept busy bringing up their four children and playing a leading role in charity work. One of her particular delights lay in attending Commonwealth conferences.

After her husband's death in 1980, there was some speculation that Lady Khama might settle in London, but she had no intention of leaving.

She was president of the Red Cross of Botswana and the Botswana Council of Women while running the Lady Khama Christmas Charity Fund; she also played a key role in the Queen's visit in 1979. Lady Khama was known as Mohumagadi Mma Kgosi (Mother of the Chief) since her eldest son is chief, but also, colloquially, as "the Queen Mother".

Ironically, there was a ripple of surprise in 1990 when her son Tony, named in honour of Tony Benn, announced that he wanted to marry a South African white girl from the rural Afrikaner stronghold of Rustenberg across the border.

Lady Khama warned that there might be some trouble with conservative tribal elders, though once again fear of South African hostility played a part in it.

Lady Khama is survived by her daughter and three sons, of whom the eldest, Lt-Gen Ian Khama, is vice-president of Botswana.